For many of us, Mother’s Day is a time to feel grateful and blessed and to cherish, love, and respect our relationship with our mother. For others it is a time of sadness to grieve for a mom who is no longer here. And for others it is a time of regret for a relationship that never was.

How often in life are we given the amazing opportunity to give love and be loved twice? To have the experience of being in love with your soul mate is an incredible gift, and to have the opportunity to be in love after experiencing the loss of our first spouse or partner is a miracle come true.

To leave or not to leave? There has been much recent focus around paid parental leave, the most recent of which is regarding Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook offers employees, regardless of gender or birthing method, four months of paid parental leave and Zuckerberg himself is taking two months of leave to be with his new baby daughter.

A new marriage can bring much joy and happiness to a new husband and wife, especially after the pain and despair of a divorce or a death. And blending your new family by bringing your children together with your spouse’s can also be wonderful and expansive, however it is usually not without some challenges.

Probably the most important thing to keep in mind when preparing your child to go to college for the first time is to talk with them (dialogue) as opposed to talking at them (lecturing). Young people, like most adults, tend to respond more favorably when they are treated with positivity and respect and are fully contributing members to their own circumstances.

When you have a picky eater in your family, it can seem like you’ve tried it all to get them to eat their vegetables, proteins, or something new and unusual. You might have tried threats (“you’re going to bed hungry!”), bribery (“eat your vegetables and you can have dessert”), or it’s even possible you’ve done things like forcing your child to eat an untouched dinner for breakfast the next morning.

Emotional intimacy is what most of us long for. Furthermore, for some, emotional connection is like breathing, impossible to live without. And sometimes, if we are not finding that deep connection within our marriage, or exclusive relationship, we may look outside for it.

Discovering that your child is on the autism spectrum can be devastating. As parents, besides feeling sadness and fear, we may feel a lot of anger and resentment towards the child. All of these feelings are natural. It takes a lot of additional time and energy to help our autistic child, and this can lead to anger and frustration on our part. We then may feel guilty for having that anger, thinking, “How can I feel this way?” 

Living on Long Island, our teenagers are faced with some unique challenges that their peers around the country are perhaps not faced with. The influences of money, as well as living next to arguably the most intense city in the world, bring added stressors to parents of teenagers. Keep reading to discover new ways that can help.